He reflected on the past nine years that he had spent helping his mother fight cancer. If he had to do it all over again, he would. But that was no longer the case, and his mother had told him in her own breath that he could live his life now.

And that’s what the hell I plan to do, he told himself as he arrived back at his desk.

“Hey, Ivan, we’re all ready for that meeting now,” Chip told him. He was already headed for the conference room.

Ivan nodded and followed him.

When they walked into the conference room, they were joined by a staff of six, with two supervisors and Dwayne Bellamy as the middle manager to oversee the meeting.

They all sat down in dark leather chairs at a cherrywood oval table that seated ten—four on each side, and one at each end.

Kevin Edison, a supervisor and the spokesman for the meeting, shut and locked the conference room door for privacy before he launched into his thoughts.

“Ah, as some of you have already heard, our contracts with Watkins Financial Group, Pellman Developers, Harvey Furniture, and Williams School Supplies are all in their last year, and the clients have not been, ah, considerably pleased with our efforts of late to save them money.”

Kevin was a straight shooter in a business that needed and appreciated it. There was no beating around the bush with accounting. The numbers and tax laws spoke for themselves.

No one said a word as he continued.

“So, over the next few weeks, our efforts as the tax staff will be to turn over every new stone to find ways in which we can squeeze another pint or so of orange juice out of the city, state, and federal tax laws—as we know them to be—to try and maintain these very, ah, important clients.”

Chip frowned, smiled, and shook his head with a chuckle of sarcasm.

Dwayne read his disturbance and asked him about it. “You have some questions, Chip?”

“Well, yeah, I mean, with all due respect, I understand how important these guys are as clients, but as their accountants, I feel that the auditing department should be the ones to go through all of their books and tell them how they can save more money on their end, instead of them coming down on us to find more loopholes in the tax laws.

“I mean, if you ask me, it just doesn’t seem fair to put that kind of pressure on us,” he commented. “I mean, the tax laws are the tax laws.”

Kevin said, “Well, the auditing department is already working on their end. We met with them yesterday.”

Dwayne said, “Obviously, you haven’t spoken to anyone in the auditing department.”

Chip looked confused that they were assumed to have known everything already.